Wilson ran a hot dog stand at first while networking and agitating for the Greek war effort (the first film she produced was actually a Greek propaganda documentary called Greece on the March). In the sixties, she bought a grand theater, the Tivoli, on 8th Avenue. Wilson got it for peanuts from Gulf & Western as it had fallen to showing nudie exploitation flicks, but this is where the story is somewhat wanting. How does one acquire a movie theater? We see that she was brilliant at networking but it is a pity no detail is offered on how she got her start.
Queen of the Deuce is made by and with many of the family and friends of Wilson and is uncritical, so it also doesn’t consider the potential destruction porn brings to its cast and audience. The documentary focuses on Wilson, which is fine – she was a Jew who celebrated Christmas lavishly and who hosted high-stakes poker games every Friday with characters like Jamie Gillis and Mickey Zaffarano. What’s not to be curious about? Dissenting voices are limited to one producer, Don Walters, describing the eye-watering gouging Wilson indulged in for bullshit overheads. But other than that, this is pretty much a hagiography.
“…has oodles of character, not least thanks to Kontakos’s sharp direction…”
The home footage is terrific and used very well. When we hear Wilson talk about her arranged marriage, her outrage just crackles off the ancient tape. And the Super 8 and VHS glimpses of her home life in the palatial apartment above the Adonis are charming and play like snippets from a lost Addams Family movie. The archive footage of Nazi-occupied Greece and The Deuce back in the day are by turns shockingly graphic and sleazily quaint.
Queen of the Deuce has oodles of character, not least thanks to Kontakos’s sharp direction and Rob Ruzic’s editing. Abhilasha Dewan’s terrific, deadpan cartoons keep the visual interest high. The whole production has a snappy, professional quality throughout and is stylishly put together.
Queen of the Deuce is a free-wheeling and intimate portrait of the stickier reaches of gangland New York in the 1970s and 1980s. If you are intrigued at all by grindhouse cinema or bygone New York, then it is seriously fascinating.
"…free-wheeling and intimate..."
